Discussion thread: Detective Conan 972-974

[DCUniverseAficionado]

It said Kuroda was in a decade long coma, right? So that means he can't be daddy Akai, cause Shuichi was apparently on his quest of vengeance even before this flashback (which was 10 years ago) so that means his dad was gone since a few years earlier. (Of course it's still possible not-truly-dead daddy Akai switched places with real Kuroda mid coma... I think...)

In that case, he can be Post-Coma Hyoue, or he could be Rum... but not both. If he is Post-Coma Hyoue, what was the impetus for him to take the real Hyoue's place? Why now, after 17 years of... hiding, I'd guess...? We haven't seen Hyoue since File 920—I'm still waiting for him to encounter any of the Akais, at this point.

[AMY 99]

Spoiler:

why the text spoiler of file 973 hasn't come out yet??

Spoiler:

apologize for what I have done about a week ago for posting links , I will be careful next time

[Mouti]

Spoiler:

why the text spoiler of file 973 hasn't come out yet??

Spoiler:

apologize for what I have done about a week ago for posting links , I will be careful next time

Spoiler:

we've some spoiler pictures.

[Kor]

Long post ahead so if you just want to know the basics of it and not read my entire Think Piece™ on this entire "storyline", here's a tl;dr based roughly on the paragraphs:
1) Conan's been a shit detective throughout this thing.
2) There's a disconnection between the character, text and writer.
3) The flashback was treated as some resolution to a mystery even though it isn't a mystery.
4) Masumi is written like a fanfic character
5) Masumi is a frustrating character

Here are a few other major problems with this whole Akai family matters overall. The plotting was shoddy as hell. This series is a detective mystery series, right? So why is Conan being such a shit detective throughout this entire thing? Masumi throws at him Mary's image and mentions various things and Conan feels he met her before. Does Conan investigate anything? Not really. He left one bug and then just started wondering inside his head about stuff for quite a while. How does Conan realize MG might be Masumi's mother? He doesn't. He overhears Masumi referring to MG as such. Conan only discovers things via convenience and not via his own prowess (like receiving a handkerchief with the name Mary that Masumi left in some ramen place). Heck, it was revealed (officially) to us that Masumi is Shuichi's sister yeeeeeeeears before Conan finally figured it out (which doesn't make much sense but we'll put Mystery Train's awfulness aside for now). The protagonist detective can't be 10 steps behind the reader (we're usually the ones behind Conan).
It makes you wonder, if Conan never bothered to seriously investigate any of this stuff, does that mean he never cared that deeply about any of this? He sure seemed to think about Sera's family every so often, but based on his actions it hardly seems like he cared. But if the detective can't bother himself to investigate the mysteries thrust upon him by the narrative, then does that mean the readers just as well shouldn't care about them? Gosho certainly seemed to want us to take these mysteries seriously, so that can't be it either. Basically what I'm trying to imply is that there is a clear disconnection between the character and the text and the author.
This whole flashback is a total farce. Instead of Conan working to figure out on his own about Sera's family, he just had to remember that he had met them before. But he already realized years ago that he met Sera in the past, so instead of the narrative relying on Conan's detective abilities, it relied on his abilities to... remember stuff...? The flashback was treated as some sort of resolution to a mystery, but the flashback was never a mystery. We knew there was such a meeting in the past. Congrats Conan for finally remembering thanks to all the subtle and also really not subtle hints Masumi dropped at you (intentionally or otherwise).

Speaking of Masumi - I said it in the past but I'll say it again here. She's written like an original fanfic character and the entire conception of this character is filled with problems. From the get-go she knows much more than most of the other characters in the series. She knows who Conan is (plus she knows about the existence of other characters she's probably never met before). She's the sister of Akai Shuichi, who is an important player in the series. Oh, and she also met Shinichi in the past, which is probably the most tacked on element in the series. So let's sum it up - she's a female detective who suddenly appears in the series, she knows who Shinichi and Ran are (and met them in the past), she knows Conan's secret, she's Shuichi's sister, and she just might also be interested romantically in Shinichi. SURELY then this character must be very important, right? Wrong. Masumi STILL hasn't done anything yet. Early on she was used as an unconvincing Bourbon suspect, but after that she had nothing to do with the rest of the Bourbon stuff. For all the things this character knows, she hasn't really influenced the plot in any meaningful way. Sort of like an original character in a fanfiction - no matter how much nonsense the fanfic author may make this character do or how important they'd try to make this character seem, this character cannot affect the original work. (Just before someone jumps. No, I'm not saying Masumi is an actual fanfic character. I'm saying she's written like one).
Worst of all, it's been over half a decade already since this character first appeared, yet we still have no clue what is even the motivation of this character. She seems to want Conan to remember their past encounter, she seems to want Conan to know about Mary and help them in... whatever it is they might need help with, but she's never going to simply tell him that she knows his secret or how they met in the past*. No, she has to be all mysterious and stuff. Wait, did I say mysterious? My apologies, I meant to say vague. Just because characters might say vague stuff doesn't make them (or what they say) mysterious, it just... means they are being vague. Gosho, as a mystery writer, should be able to tell the difference between vagueness and mysteriousness. Does he understand that, though? Who knows. Masumi being vague hasn't made her an interesting character, it just made her a frustrating character.

*It honestly makes my skin crawl whenever I see people try to justify Masumi's behavior about this subject, or really try to justify any of this "characters don't talk with each other" nonsense. It's a gigantic flaw in Gosho's writing. I think it's pretty obvious why Masumi and other characters have been behaving this way - because Gosho wants/needs to pad out his series as much as possible. All the justifications for this people may try to come up with will not cover the inescapable problem that this entire "storyline" has been uninteresting, badly written, and filled with the most boring "mysteries" imaginable.

[AMY 99]

Spoiler:

why the text spoiler of file 973 hasn't come out yet??

Spoiler:

apologize for what I have done about a week ago for posting links , I will be careful next time

Spoiler:

we've some spoiler pictures.

yeah , know that but I want to know the details of the file

[haibaralove]

I read file 972 just now...I never thought Akai is such a
cool character... almost like Shinichi in some way....his relationship with his mother is quite hilarious...I laughed when they beat up each other...also when Akai asks looking at Sera...I was like ...And the way Sera makes attempt to make Akai laugh is kind of cute ...That lil Shinichi trying to guess about Akai was fun...I am more intrigued now about Akai's father...' looks like I made enemies with some really horrible people '....does this refer to Black organization or Rum???
Can't wait for next!!!

P.S-Akai is quite fun character...never thought so ever... coz he always looks so quiet and serious...glad to see other side of him

[k11chi]

"How does Masumi know Conan" is a mystery and this explain when they met...

[DCUniverseAficionado]

"How does Masumi know Conan" is a mystery and this explain when they met...

Kor's talking about the quality of said "mystery."

I think it's pretty obvious why Masumi and other characters have been behaving this way - because Gosho wants/needs to pad out his series as much as possible. All the justifications for this people may try to come up with will not cover the inescapable problem that this entire "storyline" has been uninteresting, badly written, and filled with the most boring "mysteries" imaginable.

Yeah, the past 200 Files, in this respect (and one could take it even further than 200), are a hallmark of padding. Gosho clearly doesn't want to wrap DC up, yet, so he's extending it... with a sole focus on just extending DC, rather than making that extension something that most can look at and say, "hey, at least he gave it his all, on that..."

Until he ceases focusing on, purely, the protraction of the series, the characters "in-the-know" are still going to display communication problems, because that's an easy way to keep things as they are.

Just with Scarlet Showdown (File 894–File 898/Episode 781–Episode 783), most are not going to be satisfied by the current case, as a resolution, after 200+ Files of waiting for that resolution. While some would be appeased if the length of these arcs were shortened, others would point out why these mysteries are still not even worthy of a much shorter arc. Just how much time, in hindsight, was the Bourbon arc worth? Same question goes for this "Akai family arc," which began with Masumi's introduction.

There will still be questions, after this case concludes, but this case could be considered the end of the "Akai family arc" (or at least, the end of the part of it where it hasn't been officially confirmed that Shukichi's the middle brother and that Mary is Mrs. Akai). So the question now becomes, how will Gosho continue to pad the story, from here (not counting his use of the absence of communication between those "in the know")? Will it be with already-established characters, or will new ones be added?

In the end, we're all still waiting for the pieces to move... while Gosho just makes the board bigger.

I may be grateful that we got this case as early as 2016 (part of me expected us to have to wait until 2017-2018 for it), but some would say we should've gotten it in 2012... and that charge has complete and utter merit.

[eros1607]

Long post ahead so if you just want to know the basics of it and not read my entire Think Piece™ on this entire "storyline", here's a tl;dr based roughly on the paragraphs:
1) Conan's been a shit detective throughout this thing.
2) There's a disconnection between the character, text and writer.
3) The flashback was treated as some resolution to a mystery even though it isn't a mystery.
4) Masumi is written like a fanfic character
5) Masumi is a frustrating character

Here are a few other major problems with this whole Akai family matters overall. The plotting was shoddy as hell. This series is a detective mystery series, right? So why is Conan being such a shit detective throughout this entire thing? Masumi throws at him Mary's image and mentions various things and Conan feels he met her before. Does Conan investigate anything? Not really. He left one bug and then just started wondering inside his head about stuff for quite a while. How does Conan realize MG might be Masumi's mother? He doesn't. He overhears Masumi referring to MG as such. Conan only discovers things via convenience and not via his own prowess (like receiving a handkerchief with the name Mary that Masumi left in some ramen place). Heck, it was revealed (officially) to us that Masumi is Shuichi's sister yeeeeeeeears before Conan finally figured it out (which doesn't make much sense but we'll put Mystery Train's awfulness aside for now). The protagonist detective can't be 10 steps behind the reader (we're usually the ones behind Conan).
It makes you wonder, if Conan never bothered to seriously investigate any of this stuff, does that mean he never cared that deeply about any of this? He sure seemed to think about Sera's family every so often, but based on his actions it hardly seems like he cared. But if the detective can't bother himself to investigate the mysteries thrust upon him by the narrative, then does that mean the readers just as well shouldn't care about them? Gosho certainly seemed to want us to take these mysteries seriously, so that can't be it either. Basically what I'm trying to imply is that there is a clear disconnection between the character and the text and the author.
This whole flashback is a total farce. Instead of Conan working to figure out on his own about Sera's family, he just had to remember that he had met them before. But he already realized years ago that he met Sera in the past, so instead of the narrative relying on Conan's detective abilities, it relied on his abilities to... remember stuff...? The flashback was treated as some sort of resolution to a mystery, but the flashback was never a mystery. We knew there was such a meeting in the past. Congrats Conan for finally remembering thanks to all the subtle and also really not subtle hints Masumi dropped at you (intentionally or otherwise).

Speaking of Masumi - I said it in the past but I'll say it again here. She's written like an original fanfic character and the entire conception of this character is filled with problems. From the get-go she knows much more than most of the other characters in the series. She knows who Conan is (plus she knows about the existence of other characters she's probably never met before). She's the sister of Akai Shuichi, who is an important player in the series. Oh, and she also met Shinichi in the past, which is probably the most tacked on element in the series. So let's sum it up - she's a female detective who suddenly appears in the series, she knows who Shinichi and Ran are (and met them in the past), she knows Conan's secret, she's Shuichi's sister, and she just might also be interested romantically in Shinichi. SURELY then this character must be very important, right? Wrong. Masumi STILL hasn't done anything yet. Early on she was used as an unconvincing Bourbon suspect, but after that she had nothing to do with the rest of the Bourbon stuff. For all the things this character knows, she hasn't really influenced the plot in any meaningful way. Sort of like an original character in a fanfiction - no matter how much nonsense the fanfic author may make this character do or how important they'd try to make this character seem, this character cannot affect the original work. (Just before someone jumps. No, I'm not saying Masumi is an actual fanfic character. I'm saying she's written like one).
Worst of all, it's been over half a decade already since this character first appeared, yet we still have no clue what is even the motivation of this character. She seems to want Conan to remember their past encounter, she seems to want Conan to know about Mary and help them in... whatever it is they might need help with, but she's never going to simply tell him that she knows his secret or how they met in the past*. No, she has to be all mysterious and stuff. Wait, did I say mysterious? My apologies, I meant to say vague. Just because characters might say vague stuff doesn't make them (or what they say) mysterious, it just... means they are being vague. Gosho, as a mystery writer, should be able to tell the difference between vagueness and mysteriousness. Does he understand that, though? Who knows. Masumi being vague hasn't made her an interesting character, it just made her a frustrating character.

*It honestly makes my skin crawl whenever I see people try to justify Masumi's behavior about this subject, or really try to justify any of this "characters don't talk with each other" nonsense. It's a gigantic flaw in Gosho's writing. I think it's pretty obvious why Masumi and other characters have been behaving this way - because Gosho wants/needs to pad out his series as much as possible. All the justifications for this people may try to come up with will not cover the inescapable problem that this entire "storyline" has been uninteresting, badly written, and filled with the most boring "mysteries" imaginable.

Surely Gosho doesn't handle this arc quite well but I think the problem is not that big. Before this arc, Conan had been busy enough about Bourbon. He only realized that Rei/Amuro was in PSB shortly before Scarlet Showdown. After Scarlet showdown, Conan, Akai immediately have been actively investigating Rum, especially after they knew the case of Haneda Kohji. I think that Conan just focuses on Rum. The family matter is also important but not his priority. And he even didn't know the address of Sera, how could he find any clue without Sera hints. Stalking her? And Conan is not a shit detective. He has enough to do already. Just because you know everything from the start like in inverted detective stories, that would not imply the detective is shit. And this flashback is not finished yet. We should wait till the end to evaluate. Maybe in the end of this flashback, there will be some interesting mysteries or clues that may help Conan investigate about Haneda Kohji or Akai's father or even Rum. At least to me, this thing is still much better than the beginning of Bourbon arc and Masumi does more than Ran.

[k11chi]

Masumi is far from a bad character and surely one of the fan favourites now.
Also on another note things such as Bourbon being Scar Akai and his reasons for doing so (despite Akai being "dead") and Akai being Subaru don't go around destroying characters but instead add dimensions and layers to who they are when you look at how they act towards different situations.

[ATEM]

@kor
I mostly agree actually there are many other things to be added to this list , Gosho doesn't want to end this series anytime soon and just destroying his own plot , his plot isn't that big regarding the time it needs while he is trying so hard to extend the plot over the murder cases too much causing it to lose it's logic , if masumi needs conan help why she isn't trying much harder to reach him it's not a day or two we are in that for years , why conan didn't ask akai directly if she is his sister and what is she doing here and if they are really in contact or not other than rising up so many unnecessary questions for years .. most of the series mysteries now aren't mysteries they are just built on the characters lack of contact which is completely meaningless and became really bothering most of this mysteries will be solved if akai masumi mari haibara and conan reached each other and everyone told the others what he knows and then they try to think of the real problems and real enemies instead of wasting too much time thinking about each other while they are on the same side .
, for the series just a few months had passed but for readers it's 22 years that can not be neglected we still don't know what is the importance of role of most of the main characters till now also we can't give an answer if someone who know nothing about it asked what's conan plot other than him being a detective who shrank because we actually know nothing other than random pieces of puzzle and suspected hints for things ,the idea of DC very short timeline that gosho had been playing on for years to give logic to his story started to be unconvincing
most of conan fans are old or more accurate not kids they are the ones who grew up with conan and a high percent of them including me are more concerned about the plot rather than the murder cases it's not a simple murder case that we are waiting for the suspect to be revealed at the end.

[Wakarimashita]

@kor
most of conan fans are old or more accurate not kids they are the ones who grew up with conan and a high percent of them including me are more concerned about the plot rather than the murder cases it's not a simple murder case that we are waiting for the suspect to be revealed at the end.

In the West, maybe. But in Japan most people just see Conan as the fun weekly mystery series. In think this difference in expectations between the japanese general public and the fans in the west is at the root of some of the frustrations of the latter. But the reality is that Gosho and his editors aren't writing for us, they're writing for the aforementioned japanese general public.

[eros1607]

@kor
I mostly agree actually there are many other things to be added to this list , Gosho doesn't want to end this series anytime soon and just destroying his own plot , his plot isn't that big regarding the time it needs while he is trying so hard to extend the plot over the murder cases too much causing it to lose it's logic , if masumi needs conan help why she isn't trying much harder to reach him it's not a day or two we are in that for years , why conan didn't ask akai directly if she is his sister and what is she doing here and if they are really in contact or not other than rising up so many unnecessary questions for years .. most of the series mysteries now aren't mysteries they are just built on the characters lack of contact which is completely meaningless and became really bothering most of this mysteries will be solved if akai masumi mari haibara and conan reached each other and everyone told the others what he knows and then they try to think of the real problems and real enemies instead of wasting too much time thinking about each other while they are on the same side .
, for the series just a few months had passed but for readers it's 22 years that can not be neglected we still don't know what is the importance of role of most of the main characters till now also we can't give an answer if someone who know nothing about it asked what's conan plot other than him being a detective who shrank because we actually know nothing other than random pieces of puzzle and suspected hints for things ,the idea of DC very short timeline that gosho had been playing on for years to give logic to his story started to be unconvincing
most of conan fans are old or more accurate not kids they are the ones who grew up with conan and a high percent of them including me are more concerned about the plot rather than the murder cases it's not a simple murder case that we are waiting for the suspect to be revealed at the end.

He didn't ask Akai about Sera because he knows Sera is Akai's sister already. Remember when Conan tried to ask Akai about his father, Akai said that he would tell Conan if Conan revealed himself but Conan refused. I don't know why Conan doesn't trust FBI. Because it is a foreign agency??? I just think that his ego is so big that he want to reveal the identity of BO himself without FBI or PSB. Amuro also shows this sort of attitude. Are Japanese really so against foreign organization???

[k11chi]

Characters in mystery series have their reasons for not sharing what's on their minds more often than not, that is normal. Ace Attorney has been overplaying it since the first game where no one shares anything. Conan's story arcs have always spanned number of cases with the overarching story so nothing has changed there.

[DCUniverseAficionado]

@kor
I mostly agree actually there are many other things to be added to this list , Gosho doesn't want to end this series anytime soon and just destroying his own plot , his plot isn't that big regarding the time it needs while he is trying so hard to extend the plot over the murder cases too much causing it to lose it's logic , if masumi needs conan help why she isn't trying much harder to reach him it's not a day or two we are in that for years , why conan didn't ask akai directly if she is his sister and what is she doing here and if they are really in contact or not other than rising up so many unnecessary questions for years .. most of the series mysteries now aren't mysteries they are just built on the characters lack of contact which is completely meaningless and became really bothering most of this mysteries will be solved if akai masumi mari haibara and conan reached each other and everyone told the others what he knows and then they try to think of the real problems and real enemies instead of wasting too much time thinking about each other while they are on the same side .
, for the series just a few months had passed but for readers it's 22 years that can not be neglected we still don't know what is the importance of role of most of the main characters till now also we can't give an answer if someone who know nothing about it asked what's conan plot other than him being a detective who shrank because we actually know nothing other than random pieces of puzzle and suspected hints for things ,the idea of DC very short timeline that gosho had been playing on for years to give logic to his story started to be unconvincing
most of conan fans are old or more accurate not kids they are the ones who grew up with conan and a high percent of them including me are more concerned about the plot rather than the murder cases it's not a simple murder case that we are waiting for the suspect to be revealed at the end.

I don't know why Conan doesn't trust FBI.

Thing is, he doesn't trust them as much as Shuichi.

After all, Gosho's dumbed them down since the Kir arc because he thinks that'll make the BO more intimidating.

Characters in mystery series have their reasons for not sharing what's on their minds more often than not, that is normal.

Personally, I may mind it as little as you, but others wouldn't really consider this a good thing.